Stem Cells the Human Body

Stem Cells

The human body is made up of cells, each of which has a specialty within the body. Stem cells are essentially the roots of cells. Thus, a stem cell can eventually grow into many different cell types in the body, not just one type. When stem cells divide, they have the ability to either remain as a stem cell or to become a fully-developed, specialized cell (NIH.gov, 2002).

Stem cells are important because of the differences between stem cell behavior and conventional cell behavior. While developed cells are specific in their purpose, stem cells can be used for a number of different purposes. For example, a white blood cell can be used in a transplant to help somebody who needs white blood cells. It cannot be used for any other purpose. Stem cells, in contrast, can be used for a variety of purposes. Of particular importance is how this flexibility gives us the ability to have the stem cells divide. Using this, we can repair tissues damage. Stem cells also store better than regular cells, and still work well even after long periods of storage. These techniques mean that stem cells can be used to help patients recover from heart disease, for example, or diabetes. In the future, stem cells could be used to treat things like leukemia. -- there are going to be a lot of advancements in medicine over the next fifty years that are driven by stem cells.

Another use of stem cells in the future is to test new drugs. This will lower the cost of new drug development, making new drugs more accessible to all. Moreover such testing is more direct and can be studied in a laboratory. The result is that drug testing with stem cells will also be more accurate than it currently is. This also opens up the ability to develop new drugs for ailments where perhaps research has stalled -- new drugs for different forms of cancer, for example (NIH.gov, 2002).

The NIH (2002) identifies cell-based therapies as the most important area for stem cell research. Degenerative ailments, for example Alzheimer's, could be treated. Recovery from traumatic injuries like burns and strokes can occur more quickly with stem cell technology as well. It is not hyperbole to suggest that stem cell research is the most important area of research in medicine today, and from it we are likely to derive a wide range of treatments and therapies that will extend our lives and improve their quality as well.

2. There are two types of stem cells -- adult and embryonic. The latter are derived from embryos, typically ones that come from fertility clinics and with donor consent. These are then cultured in a lab to generate a cell line. Over time, the stem cell line can be duplicated and enlarged to a point where it is ready for use in labs (NIH, 2002).